The Pros And Cons Of Unequal Public Schools

The William Penn School District, located in inner Philadelphia suburbs, has a high school where children run to the classroom for the best blankets because they have no heating, and at the same time lack helpful resources that can help them in school(18). Lower Merion School District, just a half an hour away in the outskirts of Philadelphia, has state-of-the-art facilities in its high schools and is rated #4 of 497 school districts in Pennsylvania on Niche.com(17). This staggering difference shows just a glimpse of how unequal public schools in the U.S. can be in just one state, one area; and how low-income students are deprived of basic resources that they need in their schools every day.

In the U.S., there is not equality in public schools,

education system. From the evidence from statistics and the comparison of low-income students to their middle and higher-income counterparts, the gap begins to surface. In comparison, around three in every four low-income students graduate on time, while nearly nine out of ten middle and high-income students are graduating on time(15). This divide stems from when the students were younger. Unfortunately, lower-income students begin to struggle with disadvantages from a young age that carries on into their later school years. According to the Bookings Institution, the two out of three children who remain in the bottom two-fifths of the income bracket were born into families in the bottom fifth of the bracket(12). The educational gap begins to show in children at just five years old. The Bookings institution also states that a little less than half of poor children are ready for school at age five compared to 75% of children of families on moderate and high incomes(12). As the disadvantages of low-income students continue to burden them into the future, these students end up falling short of crucial educational milestones. Less than 70% of low-income students graduate in 11 states, according to the Building a Grad Nation report released annually(15). The staggering differences seem like they need to be changed, but there is one main detriment that is holding low-income students back from succeeding school and

School-related problems like equity, student performance, and school funding have all been analyzed by the Boston Consulting Group. When the group focused on state funding in schools and its effects, they found that state funding can “help level the playing field” because states’ funding is more diverse and wider in area than a local district(19). Although there are fewer dollars available to schools in areas more reliant on state funding than on local property taxes generally, equity is more available across those districts (20). This equitability would further close the gap on high and low-funded schools around the same area. State funding would also generally help the education of a state education. According to the BCG, better outcomes on the National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP) is a result of a greater proportion of total public spending covered by a state. If state funding brought equity to all areas, than lower-income area public schools would have an increase in per-pupil